Why Facebook Social Readers Suck
[/media-credit]It is no secret that the last five years have meant troubled times for the newspaper industry. Since 2007, 14 U.S. daily publications have closed and last week the New Orleans Times-Picayune joined eight other papers that have moved to 24/7 online publishing. Starting this Fall, the paper will cut down its print publication to three times a week and layoff an indefinite number of its staff.
While news companies have cut and even entirely discontinued their print publications, journalism is far from ceasing to exist. Publications are making strides in drawing in readers through unconventional, non-recyclable methods. This age of new media is an opportunity to utilize technology and evolve with the masses in the way that they are receiving and communicating news. But while the evolution process has seen some success, it has also seen failure.
In an effort to increase readership numbers by investing in online marketing, companies created pages on Facebook, where they could advertise to hundreds of millions of people at little or no cost. Facebook users can receive news about any such topic by “liking” a page and reading updates through their news feed. However that did not give publications quite the edge they were looking for.
The Washington Post decided to try out a new technique in creating content that suits each individual reader. In September 2011, they launched their version of the social reader application, an application that facilitates reading in a social networking environment. By clicking on stories, the app remembers what topics each user is interested in and will cater the articles on the home page to match one’s needs rather than a generic selection of stories.
Considering that this current post-modern generation is extremely well-versed and interested in promoting themselves and not so much in global affairs, the idea seemed like a brilliant way to connect the two.
Despite intense efforts to help newspapers reach readers in uncharted territory, this month brought bad news for the Washington Post. From April to May, readership went from over 17.4 million down to 9.2 million, according to appdata.com. But why the decline? Some have blamed the recent Facebook news feed renovations. Rather than seeing a number of recently read stories in your news feed, only a few are highlighted at the top. Unfortunately, as I have learned, my friends like to read about celebrities. Rather than seeing a variety of stories in my news feed every day, I have recently been greeted by tacky and legitimately absurd news content, like Pauly D’s new look.
That leads to the next nuisance with social reader apps. When I click on a story, I am redirected to a page where I must sign up for the application before viewing or posting any seen footage. I did it once. I figured as a journalist, I ought to have the Washington Post social reader app. Then I started noticing other interesting stories in my news feed that my friends had viewed. Come to find out, they were all from different social reader app pages. Over and over again, I had to grant permission to applications, just to read an article.
The only social reader page I ever went back to read in my free time was the Washington Post (WaPo). Yet I was not impressed or lured in as I had hoped to be. I felt like I was missing out on the full Washington Post website. Furthermore I had never take a quiz or survey to indicate what type of stories I wanted to read about. All of the stories coming up on my homepage were of little or no interest to me.
While I do recognize that social reader apps are not even a year old and changes are being made to adapt to readers’ requests and needs, I am not sure if companies can adapt fast enough. Even so, the page views they may be getting on Facebook could be taking away views from their actual website. Is the sacrifice worth it? If new readers are being drawn in and ultimately signing up for some form of electronic publication is the experiment worthwhile? Therein lies the next problem, how does a news company get readers to pay to read the news when Facebook social reader app users are used to getting it for free?
I’v always found the social reader on FB to be beyond annoying. When presented with the option of signing up, I just went to google and searched the headline. I really think advertising what stories I’ve read is a good feature whatsoever… Feels more like an invasion of privacy or a toy of the very vain.